Page 5 of Girls Just Want to Have Sun

She flicks her bright red hair over her shoulder and links her arm through mine. ‘Connie, so this your first time away on tour, yeah? Who do you do?’ she says, trying to place who I look like for my tribute act.

I sweep my eyes around the group. ‘It’s hard to describe. I kind of take the audience on an emotional journey. I start off a cappella, all melancholic and ethereal, and then segue into more dramatic, contemporary ballads, you know?’

I hesitate at the lack of reaction. I should refrain from talking, but nerves have got the better of me.

‘I thought I’d mix a few classical numbers with Latino seeing as we’re in Spain. I could doPhantomin French and “Nessun Dorma” in Italian, bel canto obviously.’ I emit a nervous, nasally yipping sound, quite the opposite of endearing. ‘Oh, and I did once sing a Gregorian plainchant in the original Greek, but I’m not sure how that would go down in Benidorm.’

For the love of God, abort. Abort.

They frown at one another, confused.

‘Yeah, they’ll hate all of that,’ Tash says quickly, rolling her eyes at the girls. ‘Just stick to pop tunes or maybe songs fromThe Greatest Showmanif you must show off, but don’t cover anything that we’re doing.’

‘Okay,’ I say, dread swirling up from my stomach. ‘At least I don’t know any Pussycat Dolls hits, so there’ll be no chance of that.’

‘Neither do we,’ says Tash, flicking her mane of jet-black hair extensions over her shoulder. ‘We channel their vibe, but we do Beyoncé, Taytay, RiRi and a bit of Little Mix. Which is why they love us over there.’

Tash and her band are quick to reveal they have wiped everything I’ve just said about my stuck-up, horrific-sounding singing completely from their minds and proceed to tell me how Benidorm has got everything you can possibly need for a girls’ trip abroad.

‘Don’t worry. There’s plenty of English-speaking natives, so you don’t even have to speak Spanish at all. Not. One. Word!’ Tash reassures me.

‘I have an A level in Spanish, actually,’ I say, keen to make amends. ‘So that might come in handy.’

They do not look the slightest bit impressed and carry on as though I’d not even mentioned it.

‘Don’t worry about having to eat any Spanish food either,’ says one of them, wrinkling her nose at me. ‘You can get allsorts of English food over there. You know, like pizza, kebabs, McDonald’s.’

‘Big Mand is right. And absolutely everything’s dripping in garlic sauce,’ Cherry tells me enthusiastically.

Simply delightful. Cannot wait. Wonder why this was not given top billing on Tripadvisor.

‘And it’s swarming with English men,’ Tash explains gleefully. ‘Absolutely heaving. All totally,totallypissed.’

Lovely. Also wonder why Expedia not leading with this.

‘I like my men how I like my fruit,’ a girl called Liberty boasts, twirling a long strand of hair.

Ripe?

My eyes balloon as the Dollz automatically chorus, ‘FIVE A DAY!’

I blink, unsure of how seriously to take this startling revelation. As we make our way through the airport, they also tell me that it is simply impossible to get any of these things, decent men and suchlike, in England, and it is much better to go abroad for them. It is especially easy to ensnare the good-looking ones at festivals, I’m told.

‘They’re all on so many drugs, and they have no idea what they’re doing! They can barely speak! Last year I handcuffed a guy to myself for two days,’ says Liberty, giggling. A prickle of alarm creeps through me as I imagine getting arrested for somethingthey’vedone.

I’ve got a whole week of this.

Seven days.

Seven days of witnessing men being kidnapped and falsely imprisoned. I told Ged that forcing me out of my comfort zone before I’m good and ready would be a mistake, but would he listen?

No, he would not.

As we stand in the queue to go through security, I’m told all five of the girls’ names, what they do for a living when not on tour singing or breaking several laws and what their views are on pubic hair. It’s all very mixed.

‘Nancy must think very highly of you if she’s put you as our headline act,’ Big Sue, the tallest woman I’ve ever seen, says. ‘You must have a similar style to us. Raunchy, is it?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘Unfortunately not, no. I’m not the, erm, sexy type.’

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